How is it that this kid from Batley Carr that no one has heard of is a part of this deal which could pay for City’s future?

Pull up a chair, dear reader, because the deal was being done on the day BfB spent with Archie Christie and now it is public we can fill in a few details.

Before we arrived for our early morning swim Archie Christie had been meeting David Moyes (the time to allow the manager get to training) to talk about Green but by the time we ended the day we had held in our hand a bid for the player from another Premier League Club.

The deal had been in the offing for sometime although it was coincidence that we got exposed to it (the day of the interview was enforced by mine & Jason’s work commitments, Christie took the first day we offered some eight days in advance of the interview) although in setting up there was a time when I was on Christie’s house phone and David Moyes was the mobile being told that he would be called back.

It is probably not fair to say who the other Premier League team was it was but you might notice that Everton are replacing Tottenham Hotspur in the four team tournament next summer. Spurs are pivotal in the story of Green’s rise. It was on the training pitches of Tottenham Hotspur that Christie showed off his young player’s talent. “He is Rooney,” Christie told us he had told Premier League managers, “the best in the country.”

They agreed. Green played for one of Spurs’ youth teams against Aston Villa and turned in a match winning performance in front of the the massed ranks of scouts. By the end of the game those scouts were literally chasing Christie to find out about the kid.

27 clubs – including top clubs from Germany and Scotland as well as the Premier League – registered an interest in George Green. Christie proudly showed us the DVD of the game in which Green scored a hat-trick. Fifteen in a game of lads older than he Green stood out, and two of the three goals he scored were superb. A mazy dribble with sublime finish and a first time curled goal that did recall Rooney were impressive enough to enchant youth scouts, Premier League managers, Chairmen, Directors of Football recruitment.

Christie had built up Green’s confidence – a confidence he showed on the field against Aston Villa’s kids who had a pair of central defenders rated as the best young pairing in England – by giving him a place in the Development Squad. Green is proof of concept for the idea of having a way to graduate players from the kids but not to the first team. Green could not have played in the first two months of City’s season and even if he had the realities of League Two football probably would not have helped the player’s development.

But playing in the middle area that Christie’s Development Squad provided a place for City to build Green, and be sure of him. While in the Development Squad Christie and the coaches moved Green’s play forward on the field, putting him into a more attacking role. One of the skills Christie is credited as bringing to his role (See Archie Christie Day: Part 2) is the ability to tweak a players game to develop it. In this case he nudged Green forward up the field and the results are there for all to see.

When I asked him how he could attract the attention of top clubs when parading Green Archie Christie said it was because he so rarely did promote a player, and when he did that player was worth promoting. Said Christie “This is one of the highest deals ever for a 15-year-old from a League Two club. But George is the best I’ve seen in his position at his age. He could become another Wayne Rooney or Paul Gascoigne.”

However Christie would not take all the credit for George Green and Peter Horne – and his team of coaches – have once again found a player and brought him to City who has provoked interest from the top division. The difference between Green and Tom Cleverly is not in the finding but the export. As I understand the deal for Green City have got more up front than the stand to make from the full Cleverly deal, sell on clauses aside.

One can hardly blame the club or the board for that. If you or I – well versed in watching football as we are, dear reader – watched a young player impressing in a youth team game would we know at what level he could go on to play at? Would we know if the player was England material or just someone who might play 150 lower league games? If some club offered lower six figures we might take that because we knew not what the player was worth and how the market worked.

It was obvious watching him work that Christie knew that market. He told the board that he would get over a £1m George Green, they were sceptical – I’m sure that many reading this article are sceptical about someone being able to pull a kid from the youth set up and sell him for more than Andrew O’Brien – but Christie has made good on his promise. Not only that but he had looked at a player and recognised what is rare talent (how many other 15 year olds get sold for £2m?) which might indicate that the man knows a thing or two about spotting players.

In the morning we spent with Christie the deal on the table had a limit to a buy out clause, and a few other points that at the end of the day had been changed. That was on Thursday and a different club so I would not be able to say what the final details were but I’m pretty sure that that deal will be superb for City.

It would have been great to watch George Green break into the first team, to cut a dash in claret and amber, and it is sad in a way that that will not happen but that income can pay for City’s progress. The Development Squad is paid for and so are a good few first team players. Christie’s hope is that with deal like Green City will be paying for the wages of three or four League One players in years to come.

(As a side note, and the complexities are detailed and I may have misunderstood them, but when a player reaches sixteen the FIFA rules on transfers change to mean that rather than being able to get a transfer fee clubs can sign players paying compensation on the basis of a mechanic rather than as the selling club dictating the terms. Had we kept hold of Green with the aim of putting him in the first team there is a risk that he would have left after any professional contract he signed expired – typically the deals offered to sixteen year olds are two years, the deal with Brown differs because it has been subject to a transfer already – and that City would have been paid only “training compensation”. That compensation which would have been much less than the fee Everton have eventually paid.)

The Green deal is a massive success for Bradford City and hopefully a massive one for Everton too – they have developed a few decentyounglads in their time – and one which starts to move the club out of the era of relying on cash input from the chairmen and into a time when the club begins to not only pay for the year on year football but also for its own improvement.

I recall watching Dean Richards’ last game for Bradford City and when he left for a deal which could have snuck over £2m with clauses that City could have got more. When Andrew O’Brien joined Newcastle for only £1.5m plus a bit I remember thinking that we should probably view his sale as being aggregate of the fee for Des Hamilton. Dean Windass for the £1m we paid for him, Robbie Blake for half of what we had valued him at. I’ve always thought that City’s players leave cheap. I’ve seen that changing now.

George Green: Remember the name not because he is going to be the greatest player in the future of Bradford City but because his move could pay for the future of Bradford City and rather than being a product of blind luck this boon is brought about by a hard working youth development squad delivering players to a development environment and having a business environment which was able to maximise the opportunity.

One comment

I met George just over a year ago when I taught him at St John Fishers. A top lad with a great attitude. I never knew he was such a good player. Hope he goes far.

BfB

In 2016 BfB is almost exclusively written by Michael Wood. There is a Twitter feed at @boyfrombrazil but it is not often used for conversation. There is a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/boyfrombrazil but again it is not often used. There is a tendency to stay out of discussion about the articles but if you have a question or a query the best way to get it addressed is to send a mail to mail@boyfrombrazil.co.uk.